Circus of Lost Souls
by FinnFiona
Summary: "If 'an understanding' is what we had before, I wonder what this is, because I don't think I have a word for it." Damon/Elena, post 2x22. Companion to Spilled Ink on My Eyelashes


**Author's Note: So you guys convinced me—couldn't stop thinking about what Damon's side of things post-2x22 might hold once I finished **_**Spilled Ink on My Eyelashes**_**. Thanks to everyone who showed their support for that story—I hope you'll enjoy this one as well!**

**Disclaimer: Wait! Wait..! Oh, well, nope—doesn't seem that I own the Vampire Diaries. Snap. (Nor do I own the lyrics to Arcade Fire's **_**My Body is a Cage**_**… more's the pity—though I do recommend a listen, it's a pretty good fit for Damon, I think.)**

* * *

><p><em>my body is a cage<em>  
><em>that keeps me from dancing with the one I love<em>  
><em>but my mind holds the key<em>

_I'm standing on a stage_  
><em>of fear and self-doubt<em>  
><em>it's a hollow play<em>  
><em>but they'll clap anyway<br>_

* * *

><p>There isn't a person in this world that wants to be weak. But <em>my<em> life—well, it's a study in the teeth-baring, feral, irrational, _resistance_ of weakness. Or the appearance of weakness.

Ironically, my resistance often fails me. Abysmally.

Though tonight isn't about weakness—not anymore, anyhow. Weakness masking the pain and the confusion and the uncertainty, maybe. And the guilt.

The guilt most of all.

I still feel pathetic. But even _that_ it's the crux of it anymore. Not everything I should be thinking, either—this closest brush with death, my white knight brother, _her lips on mine_—it's something more basic.

Just _being_ with her, holding onto her, being held onto. One little unit in the eye of the storm—just a few more minutes before it all descends with a fury.

And Elena's eyes fill up my whole world.

* * *

><p>I don't like waiting. Inaction. It eats at me like something worse than hunger.<p>

But we have to research and plan and strategize. Or so they say. To hell with that, I need to _do_ something. But everyone else is content to sit and think, to ponder, to… get lost in their own fevered headspace, it would seem.

That's when I remember that taking care of her is job enough for now.

* * *

><p>Sometimes I think Elena just argues with me on principle.<p>

Not that I can blame her.

"_Fine_. Fine! You're right, okay? You're always right—is that what you want to hear?"

_No_. But I nod, anyway.

"God, you're impossible—it's _infuriating_."

It's gratifying, is what it is. Being right is _gratifying_—or it should be. Used to be.

But the anger spills out of her too quickly these days, like so much air let out of a balloon, and I can't be smug when she looks at me like that.

* * *

><p>I've tried a whole jar of pickles, her favorite brand of beer, two slices of homemade apple pie. Jokes, stories, snide comments. If this diner's old jukebox still worked, I'd try dancing. Covering her hand with mine was a final resort, desperate.<p>

Funny how the last thing I thought she'd want is the only thing that works.

* * *

><p>I hear the water turn off, the crinkle of the shower curtain pulled back, the soft pad of her feet on the tile floor slick with condensation.<p>

And then silence.

So she found them, the pictures she used to keep close at hand, the moments arrested in time—moments from another life, it seems now. I suppose the quiet is better than tears.

I sit on the edge of the bed, waiting for her to emerge, guessing at the verdict of this one small gesture. The solitary image I didn't bring back to her hangs pinched between my fingers.

_Elena—laughing with her whole body at something I said. _

I wish I could remember what that was.

* * *

><p>I know I should stop, pull my hand away from her hair, so soft to the touch.<p>

I know this might be more comfort to me, than to her. The moonlight illuminating the path my fingers take, back and forth, back and forth.

I know it's hard to play dead with a vampire, after all—even when you don't say a word, move a muscle. She isn't really sleeping.

I _don't_ know what that means. But I know it doesn't matter, and I don't care.

* * *

><p>I'm closing in on two centuries faster than not, but even two hundred years is almost fathomable. If I were a good little vampire, cautious, alone, I might yet live through hundreds more—and <em>that's<em> more than I can wrap my head around, most days.

Yet Elena is only seventeen—it's surprisingly easy to forget. A hundred years is an outside chance for her. But she's never looked more her age than when she stands over the shriveled grey form of our latest adversary, her eyes a million miles away.

* * *

><p>It would be so easy to take Elena's necklace off, slip behind the shutters of her subconscious, and take the nightmare away. But it would be a violation, and it wouldn't truly fix anything.<p>

Still, it's hard to ignore the ache I feel at the look in her eyes when I finally succeed in waking her, pulling her into a reality scarcely less inviting.

* * *

><p>Something's changed.<p>

I try not to look at it head-on, because the thoughts are just another way to torture myself, and I'm not that much of a masochist.

But sometimes I can't help it. If "an understanding" is what we had before, I wonder what this is, because I don't think I have a word for it.

We both have wracking feelings of responsibility, common goals, near-paralyzing fears of what's to come. A certain name always hanging between us.

Not pretty, but there it is.

Still, one day I realize I'm the only person that can get her to smile like that anymore—_that_ smile, right there—like she really believes in happiness, even for a second.

I almost can't believe that that epiphany isn't more satisfying. But _something's changed_.

Then her fingers lace through mine, wrapped lazily around the gearshift.

And it might all be worth it.

* * *

><p><em>I'm living in an age<em>  
><em>whose name I don't know<em>  
><em>though the fear keeps me moving<em>  
><em>still my heart beats so slow<em>

_my body is a cage_  
><em>that keeps me from dancing with the one I love<em>  
><em>but my mind holds the key<em>

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Thanks for stopping by, please leave a review on your way out! ;)**


End file.
